The Sound of Om

Of all the sounds in the Hindu tradition, one is older and more important than the rest: Om. The Shiva Purana tells where it came from.

In the very beginning, when the worlds had just been made, the great god sat in meditation. From him a sound issued — first a faint hum, then a steady tone. The tone had three parts.

The first part was A — the open sound, the beginning, like a mouth opening to breathe.

The second part was U — the rolling middle sound, like the breath moving forward.

The third part was M — the closing sound, the mouth shutting, the breath coming to rest.

Together they made Aum — which is written and chanted as Om.

Why these three sounds? The Purana explains plainly. The three together cover the whole human voice. A is made at the back of the throat. U passes through the middle of the mouth. M closes at the lips. To chant Om once, slowly, is to use every part of the speaking organ. Nothing is left out.

That is why Om was taken as the sound of the whole world. Just as the three sounds cover the whole mouth, the three letters were said to cover the three states of being:

• A for the waking state.
• U for the dreaming state.
• M for the deep-sleep state.

And the silence after Om — the small pause before chanting it again — was said to be the fourth state: the deep awareness underneath all the others, the one Shiva himself is.

So every Hindu prayer begins with Om. Every Veda recitation begins with Om. Every meditation begins with Om. Many mantras are simply Om followed by a name — Om Namaḥ Śivāya, Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya. The Shiva Purana says this is no accident. Om is the syllable that came out of Shiva first, and to chant it is to begin where he began.

The Purana adds one small instruction worth keeping: chant Om at the beginning of any practice, however small. Lighting the morning lamp, sitting down to read scripture, before eating, before sleep. The syllable does not need a temple. It only needs a mouth willing to shape it.

The wise know that Shiva himself is the silence after the sound. When you chant Om and stop, the moment of stillness that follows — that, the Purana says, is closer to him than the chanting was.

The next story is the five faces of Shiva, each turning in a different direction.